Sample Grade 4 Essay:
Having a hard time figuring out how the essay will be graded?
This sample essay, in response to the prompt below, would receive
a grade of 4 on a scale of 1-6. The numbered links provide
helpful writing tips related to that particular section—tips you
can use to boost your score.
"Some people believe that war is never justified. Other people
believe that war is justified under certain circumstances."
[We are a violent species.]1
We have been fighting wars since before recorded history. [The
first wars were fought over territory, or perhaps for possession
of precious natural resources, such as the use of a
stream.]2
[In the past several thousand years, innumerable wars have been
fought for the acquisition of political or religious
supremacy.]3
[I am totally against war, and would like to see it banished
from human affairs.]4
[It is my belief,]5
[however,]6
[that fighting a war is justified in a few special circumstances,
such as when freedom or survival is at stake.]7
[The American Revolution,]8
[for instance,]9
was justifiable. The colonists rebelled in order to gain the
right to worship as they pleased and to gain freedom from
taxation without representation. [World War II was a just
war,]10,
11
[with the Allies fighting to stop Hitler from achieving world
domination.]12
[But]13
[wars fought in the name of religious freedom can become
unjustified, and lead to persecution and massacres.]14
[Starting the war in what was formerly Yugoslavia wasn't
justified.]15
[Ethnic prejudice is not the same as fighting for self-rule or
survival.]16
["Ethnic cleansing" led to the kind of massacres mentioned
above.]17
[There should be a world court to peacefully mediate disputes
between countries or groups of people. The United Nations has
tried to fill this role for 50 years, but doesn't have enough
power to enforce its decisions. [If we had a global organization
powerful enough to do so, we might have a world with only
justified wars or, better still, no wars at all.]]18,
19
Overall 20
